Clearing weeds!

Monday 31st July
Today I wanted to show a late row of dwarf French beans. It is really too late but I hoped they would crop just before the frosts. However I needed to clear the weeds from the patch. I started using the hoe but soon found that some of the bigger weeds were so well rooted it was easier to just pull them. The leaf mould I spread on the soil last autumn meant it was very friable so I abandoned the hoe completely and pulled everything by hand, taking great care with the nettles! Having cleared a strip between a row of peas and a row of dwarf French beans I realised there was not enough room for the beans so abandoned that idea and moved on to weeding the beans and peas either side which took some time.

1. ​I added the weeds to the compost heap making a quite a heap on top.

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​I then moved on to fixing a wire along the autumn raspberries ready to tie them up, something I should have done before my holiday!

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On the onion patch the weeds had grown as well despite me hoeing the weeds away completely before I left. My caretaker helper had dug out a row of garlic for me. However a second row, grown from home grown cloves was still in the ground. With some difficulty I dug out the row. The crop was small as some of the bulbs had rotted away.
The onions (hidden amongst the weeds beyond the fork) should also have been lifted some time ago. I used the fork to loosen the roots under them but didn't have time to lift them before going home so left it to my next visit.

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